Strawberry Hot Sauce

Sometimes sweetness is just a mask. The smell of ripe strawberries gives way to fiery habaneros that bite like no berry ever could. But then the cool, refreshing taste of fresh orange lingers on your tongue after the heat subsides, and the temptation of another sweet spoonful rises. This strawberry hot sauce is famous for expanding interesting hot sauce and food combinations.

I've always loved heat and enjoy cooking with hot peppers, especially the habañero. The problem is that you can't always make your dishes spicy when cooking for others so you need to have a quality hot sauce on hand. Salamander hot sauces were born out of a passion and desire to create a sauce that balanced Flavor & Fire. To me too many sauces are either mostly vinegar or all heat and they generally lack flavor. I want sauces with balance, sauces that compliment food not cover it up. Sauces that can be used as a condiment or as an ingredient.

My Hot Sauce Practice

Two things are important to me, I want sauces that have depth and complexity, taste fresh and compliment food while supporting small local farms, business and in turn the local economy. Working with a small co-packer in the Hudson River Valley, Beth's Farm Kitchen, has allowed me to integrate both of these. Beth's creates my sauces by hand in small batches with fresh produce sourced from the local farms. The results speak for themselves. When a DJ at Zedalza Network tasted my sauce on air he said “That is so f#-ing good. My eyes are watering, and it just tastes like someone grinded up a garden...My God in Heaven! Salamander Sauce!”, “You know, the other hot sauces just go right for your tongue and tear you apart, this has got taste to it!" This is exactly what I'm going for in my sauces, bringing Flavor & Fire together. Sauces with flavor that, like the mythical salamander, dance through the fire and come out the other side unharmed.

My most popular sauceCurrently the Original sauce is the most popular but the new Whiskey sauce is quickly catching up. The Original is obviously my first sauce and the sauce that ignited my passion for creating sauces. This took over a year to perfect and the result is a sauce with serious heat and wonderful flavors. This is the sauce that led to the company's name, Salamander Sauce and our tag line Bringing Flavor & Fire together. This sauce has a smokiness and depth of flavor that is very unique in the industry. The description we use on our website is "Origins. The foundation. We wanted to make a hot sauce that was seriously hot but also a serious sauce. So we took red bell pepper, habañero and jalapeo, and blended in carrot, garlic, ginger and cilantro. Smoky and intense, our original hot sauce brings extra fire to any food, but never burns."

I think the reviewers put it best. Len of Foodidude.com wrote "I'll equate your typical above average hot sauce with going to a rock concert - you walk in, lights go down, you're hit with a wall of sound and think, "Wow, that was awesome," but forget about it by the following week.

I view this sauce as more akin to walking into a Jazz Club at midnight in New Orleans. You walk in, the lights are low and the air is smoky. There's a vibe that becomes part of you and before long, you know it's a night you'll remember forever. With a full-bodied orange color, there's a depth of flavor and complexity to this sauce that elevates into one long, smooth spicy finish. It's hot, but the habaneros and jalapenos dance around, instead of encompassing, the other ingredients."

Jim of Hotsauceaddicts.com wrote "Salamander Sauce Company’s Original Hot Sauce was the favorite of the three Salamander sauces we reviewed. Its deep, smoky flavor was good and its heat level was just enough to keep us coming back. Because of its versatility, we could easily see this hot sauce being used on food items such as pizza, sandwiches, burgers, meatloaves, chicken, and in stews, bisques and chowders. Probably would fare well on eggs and omelets."